THE REAL THING

For a long time I've been thinking that I had become just a "trainer", not being a "climber" anymore. Given that I've ever been such. 

The compulsive and obsessed search for physical prowess had finally become a goal in its own, completely independent from climbing performances and from climbing itself. 

Being able to do multiple standing ab-wheel rolls, or one armers, or pulling mono one armers, and climbing 6b on rock showed no contradiction to me. 

And it still does. 

Then I fell to the syrens' chant, that kept me awake at night singing "The Force has multiple facets, Lore. Pursue them all in the name of our magic formula: STRENGTH X SPEED = POWER." 

Once I finally understood the Truth, I could finally sleep again at night. But during the days, I had to snatch, clean, power clean, power press, jump, sprint, hip-hinge, do finishers, barbell complexes, dumbbell complexes, static complexes, speed complexes, contrast training, and something else. 

When I added FOAs (Frontal One Armers) to the menu, my life was finally complete.

Was I still nothing but a trainer? Luckily yes, but a stronger trainer. In any case, I couldn't concentrate on nothing else but watching my body change and my traps grow. With veins on them. 

Drop 1 kg of fat, put on 1 kg of muscle, the scale shows no progress, but the mirror (and the calipers) never lies. 

Then one day, while I was on the way to Damascus (in Damascus there is a gym where I was going to have my body fat percentage and cellular density checked), I saw a burning bush. 

I stopped by to pee on it, but it said: "Lore, follow The Force." so I replied: "You fucking idiot, what do you think I've done in the last 23 years? Piss off!" 

To which the burning bush replied: "But do you know where The Force lies?" 

"Of course I do, you silly old bush! - I said - The Force lies in the Iron and in this fucking arms of mine that can tear you another one!" 

"Aaaaight then!" 

And I moved on toward Damascus, because I was already late for my visit. 

When I got closer, I stopped by in a bar for coffee, and when I looked down into the cup, I saw all the divinities that I worship: Ben and Jerry, Big Malc, Terminator, Ripley and Call, Roy Batty and Deckard, Lt. Col. William Kilgore, Kate Moss and many more. 

And they all said to me: "The Board, Lore." 

I understood. 

I had been enlightened. 

And my life changed. 

I was only a trainer no more. I had become a board climber and I was now ready: I am not afraid.

 

 

 

 

 

 

NO MORE DAYS...

After a Spring made of good climbing on rock (yes, rock, that thing that you find outside instead of plastic and wooden holds), with Summer closing in and temps in the high 30's for weeks on end, my dreams of glory were truly shattered.
I didn't admit defeat, though, before being seriously and utterly defeated.
I went to the Dolomites again with a bunch of friends for a stag do, and once the effects of the first night on the cocktails were over, I managed to touch some rock.
I had my sight aimed at a longstanding project whose line I had finally discovered. I thought I'd done it years ago, but it turned out that the true line was a few meters on the left, completely independent from what I'd done and completely unknown to me.
To cut a long story short, it's hard and I didn't do it. In my opinion it could be around 8a+ or 8b. It's a traverse on the lip of a roof, whose first half is all the hard climbing of the 8a I did in June, and whose second half is probably from 7c up. Brilliant, totally brilliant climbing with edges, slopers and a sequence on right hand underclings that left me completely destroyed. With 25 degrees at the boulders, I couldn't do the middle moves of the 8a anymore, involving a slopey dish, so after refining my sequence I started trying the project from a few moves in. Blimey, despite bone dry holds and good form, I couldn't do it!!! It's hard!
I left emptyhanded, apart from finally repeating a 7a+ that I never found dry in 15 years of bouldering in the Dolomites!
I didn't really leave emptyhanded, because I gained a nice shoulder strain from spending a day on a hard gaston move and behind the head underclings. Obviously, I immediately tried to iron the injury out. Bad choice. On my first set of behind the neck press the sound of a packet of crackers cracking woke me up from my dreams of glory and my right shoulder was useless. Theraband weeks followed. Theraband and weights. Theraband and sprints. Theraband and everything. I managed to train around my injury, tweaked some excercises like the ab wheel and the barbell carry walk. I'd like to share what I found out, training wise, during these weeks of training and healing my shoulder, but I'm a selfish bastard and I won't. You aren't going to try them anyway, so why spend time and types? Fast forward a few more weeks, in which I found out I had progressed on every aspect of my training, from crimp strength, to openhanding strength, to body tension and pulling power, I finally made it back to the Dollys. Three days of climbing, a long weekend to tick my project and finally leave rock for the Winter. No way. Weeks and weeks of rain had done the damage. First day, the roof was dripping. I tried to repeat the 8a and obviously couldn't despite being now able to repeat the part that I couldn'd do in the hot in July. I tried a one move 8a and couldn't do it because of the wet holds. Pads soaked and muddy, clothes soaked and muddy. I ate a lot. Second day, we played around for a while, I napped in the sun, then didn't resist the urge to repeat a problem that I'd done many many years ago. A roofy 7b meant a sure retroflash while waving at the crowd of hikers. No. Four fucking goes were fucking needed. I waved at the hikers though. I wanted to climb a bit more in a nice, sunny, dry spot but I was sure the roof was in good nick, so I resisted. We got to the roof. It wasn't dripping anymore, it was soaked by streaks of water running down and condensation. Got the pad again, walked to the car then I remembered of the sunny spot and headed there (another 15 minutes walking with two pads among the boulders. In flip flops.). Got there. The sunny, dry boulder was sunny and dry at two p.m., now at six it was gloomy, humid and useless as everything else. But I was there. I tried the project. Didn't even find the line or the holds. So I tried to repeat a 7c that I'd flashed in June, and of which I thought I had surely used banned holds or an easy sequence because I really pissed it (pulling very hard). Could barely do the moves in isolation. Oh well at least I cancelled my doubts about my flash. Finally did a nasty 7a+ that I'd equally done in June, only, this time I didn't bother neither matching any of the holds nor putting any weight on my feet. Third day dawned cloudy and rainy. Drove home stopping by at King Rock for a bouldering session. Tired, bad skin, torrid temps inside. Brilliant. Climbed until nauseated. Lesson to be learnt: bad bad planning for this last trip. Got there still tired from the week's training, I wouldn't have climbed the project anyway, probably, even if dry. Now I only have to train, stay in shape for some nine months, and then it will be mine. Do not expect, dear reader, to find much rock climbing on Totolore for the months to come: it's time. The time is almost here to dedicate all my efforts to the only thing that matters: my board. Home of the hardest things I've ever tried, this Winter will be the Winter of Glory. The Winter of the Beast. The Winter that will shatter the climbing world forever.

EVEN MORE DAYS?

                                                    Photo courtesy of Pietro Mittica

To say I'm pleasantly perplexed is an understatement. And this blog entry could stop here. But it would be very unfair. After my brilliant weekend bouldering in the Dolomites, glowing in the golden light of my successes, I took the courage to do a few things that I hadn't done in a while. The first one, that took a lot of courage, was taking a week off. I mean, really off. Like, no board climbing, no fingerboarding, no sprints, no weights, no nothing. Not really, but I managed to do only one session, a weights and bodyweight excercises complex that left me in agony for a good couple of days. Hitting the same muscle groups with two bodyweight routines, namely front levers and paused reps ab rolls, isn't exactly a smart idea, but it was worth the risk. I felt like a Hulk. Anyway, this week off also coincided with ten days in which I never had dinner at home, resulting in lots of tasty food and wine gulped down... So, when finally Monday came, it was with terror that I slipped what I thought was my overweight frame into my training pants and top. I was training with my good friend Pietro, and fuelled by the usual dose of caffeine and protein shakes, it turned out that I wasn't exactly out of shape, at least in climbing terms. I obviously climbed a project that I'd been trying for a while, linking single moves and short bits but never coming close to success. Lesson to be learnt: train like a headless chicken for a good twenty years, then take a week off to eat and drink, then climb your latest board project. Given that I wanted to go back to the Dolomites that coming weekend, I made a good plan to be sure that I was going to get there properly overtrained and undercompensated. 

This time I was going to be going with my girlfriend, so the weather was going to play a big role in making everything perfect: sunny days and glowing sunsets in the mountains are a good thing for a couple. 

Saturday morning dawned a bit cloudy, but it was promising. 

It was promising rain. 

It turned out that the promise was wrong: it was going to be snow. 

3 degrees, sleet and snow, what more could you ask for? 

But I'm not the one who's easily deceived, and I knew that in a couple of hours it was going to stop. After a good dose of kaiserschmarren and coffee, it was time to get our feet soaked to get some bouldering. 

There is this roof up there, that keeps attracting me and keeps giving problems (you see what I did there?). 

I had little info, in German, and I only knew that there was a big cross through move. Everything was wet, but with the precious experience gained during my visits at Parisella's Cave, I started to dry out bits here and there, fill the seams that were pouring, and assuring some chance for success. 

Then I started to figure out the moves, and everything started to crumble. The starting holds seemed to open up only to mysterious levitations to far away holds, and nothing seemed possible. The sequence that I was sure was going to earn me my first 8a flash proved to be 8c and I didn't flash it. 

Then the miracle. 

I kept my cool, stayed there, dried more footholds, kept trying and refining, and after a while, make it two hours - make it three - I had a sequence. 

I also had a soaking, trembling girlfriend. 

Being the old romantic that I am, I knew that it was time to leave, but I didn't leave. Instead, I took off my fleece, my t-shirt and my thermal and proceeded to reward my girlfriend with my bulging muscles beating down the problem into submission. I am the greatest. No, really. You can't imagine it. 

Half an hour later we were drinking spritz and eating mortadella and cheese in Campitello as if there were no tomorrow. 

While I was walking in Canazei, that was full of people fully clad in Montura, Mammut, The North Face apparel, I thought about Jerry, and started moaning to myself: "Wherever I watch, there's noone stronger than me. I am the strongest one." 

After this glorious day, I decided to take my girlfriend to get some more cold at Falzarego, where the meadow was lashed by a freezing wind that made everything a bit tricky and made me search for shelted in a nearby shithole that hosts two 8a's and an 8b+ in three meters of stone. Unfortunately being less than 45° overhanging, I didn't even manage to pull on. 

More spritz and mortadella. 

I had taken Monday off, so I was ready for the final sunny day. That never came. Clouds and wind, but a generous temp of 7°. Happiness all around. My girlfriend climbed a bit and got her battle scars, and I tried another problem in the same roof, getting as close as possible to doing it without actually doing it. 

A gigantic portion of potatoes, eggs and speck marked the end of the climbing trip and left room only for a brief stop at LaSportiva factory. I bought a pair of undersized Cobra for 59 Euros and everything was over. 

But I am still the greatest. I am still the strongest, and you all know it. 

MORE DAYS

I had thought that my moment of top form was going to vanish, and I had thought that I was going to run out of projects. I was wrong on both.

The two days of the last post became more days, in which I found myself miraculously glued to ze rock, sticking move after move.

I found myself stronger, also, adding kilos to all my previous personal bests and that's the only thing that counts, to be honest.

I ask myself why now and not before.

The answer is that it's happening now because now I am an overally better person than before. And I am a better person because I am a more complete person: my mind is as fast as a speeding bullet and as sharp as a laser beam. It's not hazy and lazy, incapable of thinking to anything that's not grades and moves. OK, it's never really been that lazy, but you get what I mean.

Better mind, better body. I'm free. Free from others, but mostly free from myself and from my demons and ego.

I know what I am and I know what I can do.

The thing that strikes me most, to be honest, is that I became less shit at flashing problems. It all started in December 2014, and I suspended my judgement waiting for some more info. Then it happened again, but on first ascents, so again I suspended my judgement. But it happened again and again. So, finally, I must think that somehow I became better at flashing problems.

I spent this last weekend in one of the places that I love the most, and in which I feel more at home: the Dolomites.

Steep boulders on pockets and edges made for testosterone bouldering with bulging muscles and veins, fuelled by all sorts of natural and artificial food, from buckets of hyperproteic yogurt with honey and hazelnuts, to protein shakes, to honey and peanut butter sandwiches, to hamburgers and pasta.

I flashed basically everything, including two 7c's (one was a retroflash of a problem I climbed ages ago). I was also very close to doing an 8a that I smartly tried at the end of the second day. Punter. 

OK, OK, I know what you purists are going to say about bouldering on dolomia: it's choss, they're eliminates, it's nasty, etc. I could finely discuss our diverging opinions about this subject, using my rhetoric to convince you about the quality of the bouldering there, but I won't do it. If you don't like it, you don't deserve it. Which is better for me also, because I like my boulders quite and private. 

Unfortunately, this moment of splendid form coincided with a certain Chzech climber flashing 8b and 8b+ and climbing 8c in a day, so I am not surprised that neither LaSportiva nor Black Diamond called me to ask me if I'd like to be paid by them to just keep climbing and being so awesome.  

TWO DAYS

It's raining and I don't care. It will rain for a good ten days, and I don't care. I'm at work, and I don't care. I've just had two fastastic afternoons climbin on rock, and I am happy. I am ready to lock myself in my cellar, trying my impossible projects; I am ready to swear and do yet another fingerboarding session; I am ready to do my weights finishers and my uphill sprints. I am ready to do it all again. I've hit an unexpected peak of form and, equally unexpectedly, I took advantage of it on the real thing. A friend of mine had reclimbed an old problem of mine, giving it a new, harder finish, and this motivated me to go and try it again. Fact is, when I did the old version, I also tried to give it a new, harder start... but never completed it. So, after almost ten years, I found myself with my old project and a harder finish! Oh yes! When my girlfriend asked me if I wanted to take an afternoon off from work and go climbing, I couldn't resist. With days of rain ahead, I wanted to climb! So we went, we were all alone in a fantastic setting, it was sunny and windy and I was happy. I tried to remember the sequence of my old project and it was easy, given that there are only those holds. Linking them was another thing. I had gone there to climb my friend's problem, but instead I tried the longer start and after some playing around I gave it a go. And I crushed it. I found myself on top with bulging forearms and I was happy and sad at the same time. Happy, because it had gone down; sad, because it was all over so fast. I always joke saying "The less I climb, the better!" this meaning that the perfect session is the one in which I get there, I warm up, I climb my project and I am free to annoy all the other climbers for the rest of the day, or be back home super early ready for some Gin and Tonic. But then, I really like to climb! And it was over already! After some hugs and kisses and coffee I did it again in bits to film it, and then I decided to take the monster 8 minutes walk to another sector to try another line I'd spotted years ago. It's the usual link of two existing problems, and I got there telling my girlfriend "Nevermind, I'll do it first go and then it's pizza time!" Ahahahahahah! Rude awakening motherfucker. I couldn't do any of the new moves. It took me a good hour and half only to manage three moves, and all of a sudden I found myself with a new project!!! Great, great day out! What my girlfriend didn't know, when she asked me to go climbing, was that I had already taken the following day off to go climbing with a friend! Oh yes. So, after my brilliant previous day, I found myseld in another sector, in which I had a project. The day didn't start very well, and it reminded me that I live in a place with little rock. Before heading to my project, we wanted to try two lines on a boulder I'd never seen before. What a piece of shit. It's in a steep part of the wood, so whenever you sit or step on the mat, you start sliding down surfing the wood; the rock is super aggressive and crumbly and I ripped off two big chunks. The problems seemed impossible despite their accessible grade. "Goddamn I should have stayed at home!" Then, we went to the project. Before hauling the pads, I checked if, for once, it was dry. Fuck, it was. And so I found myself there again, with my super sequence and all my fears. Obviously, this project is a harder start of an existing problem that I did three years ago. I had tried it on and off along the years, and often came back really not satisfied about the sequence: basically, to make the new start you could simply add one single move. I didn't like this, I wanted a line that was as independent as possible, but struggled to find a sequence. When I found it, the results were these: It was nasty and hard. Really hard. Like, barely doing single moves in isolation. Plus, I had basically already done it a couple of months ago, only with a very ugly pad dab (the start is very low), so I found myself there asking myself what was I doing there. The answer was that I was there to properly crush that shit. Dry holds make a big difference, blimey. I started, and everything felt easy. Well, not easy, it felt hard, but in control. The sequence is very simple, you either hang the holds, and if so it's ok, or you don't, and if so there are no tricks. After a false start, on my second go I found myself going through the moves steadily, and getting to the crux. I switched my right hand from a bad two fingers lock to the undercling, got it but not perfectly, kept going and missed the high pinch. Dammit. It was nearly over. I had crushed all the new start, that used to give me hell, and I'd fallen on the crux of the original 8a problem that I've done numerous times. Shit. I was under pressure. I rested, drank more coffee, and really, everything was perfect. It was sunny, windy and cool. I was having fun and I was full of joy. Only one question mark was left. The foot swap. The original problem, for me, is a bit morpho. You have to reach very high to this pinch, and I am fully extended on my left foot. Then you have to match feet, swap right for left, and move on. Well, on the reach I am so stretched that I can't match the right foot, because with the hips rotation I can't reach the foothold. It's the crux for me, and I can really barely do it. In fact, I've done many times, but one thing is coming from two easy moves, another thing is coming from five hard ones. While trying this feet swap in isolation, suddenly I felt particularly strong on the holds, and instead of the usual sequence, I just squeezed hard, high stepped with my right foot just under my right hand, pulled really hard on the pinch and I had bypassed the morpho bit and was eyeing the top. It was a brutal sequence, but at least it was only a matter of power! And power, is not a problem. I sat down, I went through the routine that makes me climb perfectly, and then I just performed. I motored through the lower moves and got to the undercling. I didn't get it right, and there I made the difference. I paused, locked myself in position like a steel beam and adjusted the right hand hold. When I got it right, fuck me it felt like a path. The high pinch move was just a gentle, slow reach, and then I was there, at the feet swap. I knew I could bypass it with the new sequence, but I also knew that it was hard. My friend yelled "Vai! Vai!" and I went. I high stepped, right foot under right hand, I pushed myself away from the pinch and it became good, put the left foot on the small edge, moved my right foot again and I was at the right hand gaston and the top. I came down and I was out of myself. In a few tries I had climbed my three years long project. I was happy, surprised and exhausted. In my memory it was easy, but in my emotions I know it was not. I climbed perfectly, physically and mentally, and performed almost at my limit. I did it again in bits to film it, and then all I had to do was spot my friend on the original 8a. He did good links and he will do it in the future. And my two afternoons of newly found climbing youth were over. I couldn't stop talking about how I'd adjusted the undercling, how I had high stepped, this and that. It was pure pure joy. So, in a moment in which I find myself disgusted by what happens around here in the climbing community; in a moment in which I feel completely out of it, and proudly so; in a moment in which all I read on climbing websites and magazines are bullshit and lies; in a moment in which I ask myself why I don't speak out the truth and put them to shame; in a moment in which I hate what they're doing to our beautiful discipline; in this moment I realized that for me nothing has changed. I can work and still train. I can love and still train. I can ride my motorcycles and still train. There's a life beyond climbing, and this makes climbing even better. Thanks for your time. And now some video stills.

BLACK INK

As you all know, it's not uncommon for me to write personal things on this blog, that are not specifically related to climbing. Because, as you may not remember, this blog was born as a climbing blog... 

Anyway, a few weeks ago I got a new tattoo. This one: 

I have a few tattoos, and while I tend to keep their meaning and their reasons private, this time it's different. I made this last tattoo because I wanted people to see it, to read it and to know its meaning, because it's very important. 

Some time ago I read the story of Eric Garner, the innocent man who was killed by some bastards who happened to be Police officers. No. They were just mentally ill dirty motherfuckers, not worth the uniform they were wearing. 

There was a video and I made the error of watching it: it's terrifying. It caused in me profound sadness, rage and disgust. 

That poor man kept saying "I can't breathe!", and still those bastards chocked him to death. To fucking death. 

Young kids and innocent people killed by "policemen" is an issue. All over what we call the civilized world. We've had our share in Italy as well: Stefano Cucchi, Federico Aldrovandi, Riccardo Magherini, only to name a few. You can find everything about them on the Net. Riccardo, while two or three "policemen" were standing on his torso, while he was laying on the ground of a street in Florence, handcuffed, kept yelling "Don't kill me, I have a little son!" and yet they killed him. He could not breathe either. 

Well, as you all know, after Garner's killing, many sport stars and celebrities wore t-shirts with Garner's last words printed on them, to show their support to his family, to show that that they knew. 

Well, that's why I got this tattoo. Because I know. I know that there are some bastards out there, that are criminal dressed as policemen. I don't buy the stories you all sell, motherfuckers. 

The late Italian actor Antonio DeCurtis, a.k.a. Totò, was a man of incredible class and culture. He once publically challenged to duel a man, who had behaved rudely with a woman in a restaurant. The man was later to become President of the Italian Republic. Another motherfucker. 

Totò once said that the only way to know the real nature of a man, is to give him a uniform and some power. The way he'll behave when wearing a uniform and having some power over someone else, will show his true nature. 

These bastards that kill helpless people are a shame to the uniforms they wear. Uniforms that have been worn by real heroes, like Salvo D'Acquisto, a Carabiniere who gave his life to save civilians from a Nazi firing squad. 

So, this is the story behind my tattoo, and this is why I want everyone to know it. Because I hate those motherfuckers, I hate everyone who uses a uniform to hurt, kill and break the law. 

THE STORY OF TWO WORLDS

First things first: I did not climb "The Story of Two Worlds". I could have, but I didn't want to ruin my skin before projecting a nearby 6b+ with a better looking line. Priorities. 

The story is about the two worlds that I've seen in the last months. 

The first one, is a world made of work, papers, books to be studied and the most important exam of my life. I simply could not pass a single day without studying or writing papers for the exam, I felt such a need to get there as perfectly prepared as I humanly could. It's been very very strange because it's been the first time in my life in which I felt such a need for perfect knowlegde. After just working as a teacher for a few years, I was feeling that my brain was struggling a little bit to grasp all the familiar concepts and principles of civil and criminal law, when I needed to use them. Now, I feel that I master those concepts and principles, and I see my brain as a laser sharp razor that would make Occam's one pale in comparison. 

I don't know if I've done enough to pass - not true. I know that I've done more than enough, I don't know how I will be judged. In Italy they are two very different things: how you've done and how you're judged - but I do know that I gave my best, and when on the third day of the written essays everyone, myself included, was almost panicking before a case that was seemingly impossible to solve, after three hours of head-scratching, searching for a norm that could suit this situation, I finally repeated to myself the mantra that I had prepared for the exam, I went to the restrooms ignoring all the comments that everyone was making about how and what to write, washed my face, got back to my desk and wrote head down for the following three hours. Then I copied everything in good calligraphy and gave everything to the examinators. The agony was over. Three days of toil and torture, alone in another town, spending days at the exams and nights in a hotel room studying for the next day, without talking to anyone. 

I got out of the hall - where 1.700 of us were having the exam - took a deep breath and broke down in tears when noone could see me. The last written essay had drained every energy from my mind and body, and I felt betrayed. I knew that these exams could be unpredictable at least, passing from easy ones one year, to absurd ones the year after. Well, I had picked the year after. After two essays that I think I did well, the third one was the one for which I felt more prepared, and it's been the one in which I've struggled the most, in which I could make the littlest display of my legal knowledge. I got out sure that I'm going to fail the exam because of this third essay. I felt betrayed and hated Italy for how it's run and organized. 

Now I only have to wait six months to have the results, then we'll see. 

Be sure that passed these holidays, I'm going back to studying no matter what. A sharp mind is a sharp body. 

The climbing, as you can imagine, took a very little back seat. Luckily for me, I don't need climbing anymore to have fun, I only need training. So, I kept doing frequent, short, intense system sessions on my board, focusing on body tension and crimp strength; and some fingerboarding not to lose the love. I had good results and found out that somehow I retained some of my ridiculous endurance for the project circuit. 

On the board, when I tried some of my projects or old problems, though, I could barely do the moves in isolation... 

During these months of this first world, I also got my knee surgery. It's been far worse than expected. When they got in to cut the broken part of my meniscus, they found out that I also had a badly torn cruciatus ligament, and my knee was full of scar tissue and debris, making it impossible to even see the meniscus. So, they had to clean and grate and scratch lots of stuff out before even starting what they had to do, and this resulted in a much heavier operation than planned. 

This was followed by weeks of sleep deprived nights due to the pain. I also lost 4 kilos, for fucks sake. Two months later, I still have to regain proper muscle mass and sports functionality. Not pleased. 

Then, after that day spent doing the last written essay, I got home and was barely able to speak with humans. My mind was elsewhere, and I could not stop thinking about what I'd been doing in those days. I could not sleep for a few nights, waking up three or four times with obsessive thoughts about what I could have or should have written. I was exhausted and only wanted to cry and pity myself. 

It took me a good ten days and many dinners, gin tonics and lie-ins, to finally see the dawn of the second world. A world in which the desie to climb on rock made its presence strongly felt. I went climbing two days in the same week, and opened two new lines in an area that I've been climbing at for ages... Seeing with new eyes, isn't it? 

Then, I booked an hotel and went to Ticino. Sun, freezing temps, perfect friction. Only my lack of climbing ability (and my terror for knee injuries) hindered me from climbing 8b+ as I was normally expecting with my usual laid back attitude. 

It's been great. I also climbed something, with an achievement that, had it happened a few years ago, would have seen me bragging about it for the whole year, and now is passing almost unnoticed and almost already forgotten. Am I finally free from climbing? Am I finally free from myself? Am I finally free from my ego? 

This second world is about to leave room to the routine of work and study, but I've planned to keep climbing a little bit. The spark is still there and my project as well. 

It's been good to finally let go of some tension, and I fear the first world. 

But as some climbers put themselves in hard and dangerous situations, and then have to deal with it, I put myself in this hard and dangerous (for my ego) situation of becoming a fully certified lawyer, and now I have to deal with it. 

I cannot wait to meet in Court that asshole of a lawyer that was doing surveillance at the exam: that useless presumptuous bastard, always arrogant and lookind down on us; I'll kick his fat ass like he's never been kicked before. 

Motherfucker.